NORTH PARK  Nearly 50 years after they played in Balboa Stadium, the Beatles returned to San Diego for an appearance in North Park on Saturday.

At least in spirit, anyway.

The occasion drew an estimated 600 of their fans to celebrate their music, fashion and impact on pop culture for the annual Beatles Fair at Queen Bee’s Art and Cultural Center.

“You love what you grew up with,” said Laurie Proia, who came down from Santa Barbara to attend the fair. She remembers seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan’s show in 1964 when she was 8. “Nothing else sounded like it. Everything was very fresh.”

Making the road trip was nothing for Proia, who has gone to a weeklong Beatles event in Liverpool, England, annually for 19 years and hasn’t missed an “Abbey Road on the River” event in Louisville, Ky., for the past 12 years.

Wearing white Beatles boots and a Union Jack mini skirt, Proia was soon was on the dance floor to watch Joey Harris, one of several performers that day, take the stage and open a short acoustic set with “All My Loving.”

“Every musician who plays modern music has to admit they’re influenced by the Beatles,” Harris said before playing the old Beat Farmers’ song “Garden,” which he acknowledged owed a debt to the Fab Four.

Rockola, True Stories, Dave Humphries, Baja Bugs and Britain’s Finest also performed. Speakers included Ken Mansfield, the former U.S. manager of Apple Records.

Guests included San Diego native Chuck Gunderson, whose new two-volume book, “Some Fun Tonight: The Backstage Story of How the Beatles Rocked America,” chronicles the band’s 1964-1966 tours.

Among the nuggets he found over eight years of research was an itinerary that listed San Diego as the first stop for the 1964 tour, Gunderson said. The stop was canceled because the band had a contractual obligation in England, but they did play in Balboa Stadium in 1965.

Contracts show the band was paid between $60,000 to $80,000 for most shows, and a rider stipulated that they would not play before a segregated audience. The band skipped a planned show in Montgomery, Alabama, Gunderson said.

Organizer Carmen Salmon saw the Beatles live three times, including their only San Diego appearance.

“You couldn’t hear them,” she said about how fans drowned out the band after the first guitar chord. “But it was great. It was something I’ll never forget.”

Among the dozen other venders at the event was Pat Matthews of Mission Viejo, who owns the Internet radio station Beatles-a-Rama.

“I think every generation spawns new fans, a new audience,” he said about the continued popularity of the Beatles.

Gary Johnson manned the booth for Rockaway Records of Silver Lake, where rare “Butcher Baby” covers of the Beatles’ “Yesterday and Today” album sold for as high as $3,700. An original stereo unsealed copy has sold for $80,000, he said.

“Memorabilia kind of peaked a few years ago, but the really rare stuff is still very valuable,” he said.

A Beatles lunchbox in good shape can still fetch $800. Johnson’s booth also had candy boxes from the Beatles cartoon show for $200, a Beatles notebook for $175, Beatles shoes for $1,200, a plastic Beatles ukulele for $500 and a Beatles banjo for $6,000.

An original 45 of Tony Sheridan perform “My Bonnie” with the Beatles (billed as the Beat Brothers ) as his backup band sold for $3,000, a marked-down price because of its poor condition, Johnson said. The same 45 in better continue could go for $25,000, he said.

John Borack of Orange County attend the festival to promote his book, “John Lennon: Life is What Happens.”

“Look at all the people you see here,” he said about the people in attendance, everyone from a white-haired man using a walker to babies carried by their young parents. “There will always be an interest in this music. It’s timeless. It crosses all generations.”